3 Years a project.

[uunix]

...the bottom left doesn't look like sparkling water

Unless I miss my guess (I rarely do ) that's a can of the good stuff, Carling Black Label...

It's still there... well one that looks very similar.

[gijoe77]

really fantastic job! An inspiration to us all!

BTW what do you find works better in smoke than in flame?

[Irinikus]

Very cool setup!

[uunix]

really fantastic job! An inspiration to us all!

BTW what do you find works better in smoke than in flame?

Nothing at all really. In fact, originally when I started, all knew was the name SMOKE and therefore aimed my attentions at that. In an email exchange with Ian Mapleson, he made a point that most people start with FLAME, but I'd felt a bit put of by the interface. Anyway, I preserved on that note with FLAME and managed to produce a few decent edited (very simplistic) home-video to a semi production movie with clips, music etc and now I just really use FLAME. Obviously I'm a real amateur at this so do not really know what benefits one has over the other, but for my use, FLAME was my tool. It really was so easy.

[gijoe77]

most people start with FLAME, but I'd felt a bit put of by the interface.

I had it the other way around - flame seemed like just a subset of the smoke interface to me (the effects module) - I still struggle around smoke.

Do you have a TBC in your setup or does the Panasonic AG 7750 have a built in TBC?

Also do you have a external sync generator for the setup? I'm just wondering what was the crucial key to solving the timing issues going from VHS to digital (Last time I tried this with a VCR and my O2 it was an epic failure)

[sgi-enthusiast]

Hi uunix,
This is a really interesting post as I see you have gone to significant effort to get your system configured and operational, and congratulations on that!
To try and keep up with the times I recently upgraded my system and now have it configured around HD. One problem has occurred since making the change and I wonder if you have struck the same problem and resolved it.
I can no longer record through Smoke/Flame beyond 52 frames. Every time I do I get the error message 'VTR: Capture: Too many frames dropped' and it kills the video (but not the audio).
I initially thought this may have been a cabling issue so I replaced the two DVI cables between the VBOB and the Tezro with shorter ones as well as every coax cable in the video signal path with new 3Ghz versions. I have also added a new Blackmagic Design sync generator as well as a new SyncGen Art3 sync generator to keep the audio in sync at 48Khz.
I also thought it might be a disk issue, so I replaced the original disk array with a newer 4600 tray with new fibre patch leads and 1Tb WD Enterprise 15K disks. S/F reports the disk speed as excellent so I don't see that as the issue. The Tezro itself has 8Gb RAM and the boot drive is a Samsung 850Pro 500G SSD which rockets along.
Lastly the source is a Blackmagic Design Hyperdeck Studio with Samsung 500Gb SSD's which act as the VTR. The components of the system are all configured for 1080-24P which is also the output of my video camera (which connects to the Hyperdeck studio).

Strange thing is I can play back off the camera and the Hyperdeck directly into the either S or F with no issues until you hit record and the 'Too many frames dropped' hits.
Had you struck this problem?
Thanks

[uunix]

Hi sgi-enthusiast,

Time has somewhat passed since the original post, my setup has changed and I have neglected the video input side as I have been dealing with single frames taken from a cine8 scanner.

Now, I had problems with Arrays, my A500 (StorEdge) was too noisy and my T3 (StoreEdge) was just utter crap. So I resorted to a temporary solution of just sticking a disk internally. Not the best solution at all.

My other issue at the time as to why it was dropping after a period was the audio and I had to either stop recording audio or reduce it's quality iirc. BUT.. I have a third Octane that copes with the audio and it's just a matter of applying the recorded file to the video track and syncing (the hard part).

I have since then purchased two nice array systems, a genuine Discreet array RS1220 and a Network Appliances DS14 mk4 which I have yet to install. I don't currently have the space to do anything, I've been purchasing a lot at the moment for an up and coming project and I have boxes and bits all over the place.

Anyway, as bad as my current setup seems, I decided to record some VHS (PAL) and see how it went after you posted this. It dropped at frame 4,596.

So, I'm afraid I can't direct you at the moment, it sounds like you have a great setup there, I have been thinking about getting Hyperdeck myself and also maybe a Blackmagic Aten[?]. Also think I will separate my SD & HD between two Octanes so I don't have to jig stuff about.

Oh and as for syncing etc, I do have an AJA Gen10 HD/SD Sync generator, not used it yet, but I also purchased a few pro SVHS boxes which can control the sync which proved much better than a home VHS player.

So, I was at the beginning about to record from my PS/3 at 720 (restricted by the size of my monitor) rather well in the early days, but that was a long time ago now.

And now, well all depends if my project goes forward I suppose, or I get a bigger house as I'm a bit stuck currently to just turning these on too heat the office.

[sgi-enthusiast]

Hi uunix,
Thanks for the reply. I found a lot of problems went away when I added the external video sync generator and the external 48Khz generator as these acted as the 'master' reference sync so I just connected everything to them. Don't forget your ADAT (assuming you are using the Lucid ADA8824) has an input for word clock so you can tie that in as well to assist with the sync. Any further aberrations can be fixed in either Smoke or Flame by tweaking the delay.
I settled on Blackmagic Design but there are numerous choices. They have a good range and reasonably cheap and everything works with S/F. I even remotely control the Hyperdeck Studio with SSD's as my VTR through S/F as it supports the RS422 deck control standards. Blows away my friends to see circa 2004-2008 era computer hardware and software control current generation broadcast technology!
I can post some photos if anyone is interested?
Cheers

[devv]

I can post some photos if anyone is interested?
Cheers

By all means!
And uunix should post more too!

[fu]

very dandy uu :)

iz zis ze same one that started as a “jenga” stack?

... it worked OK under VLC player but no sound on any other player (inc OSX-Surprise)...

there’ s definitely a way, just can’t recall the specifics now, there’s this nice member, canavan/caravan that used to guide us with the necessary export options for irix - -> mac/win/whatever

[sgi-enthusiast]

Hi,
I thought I would post some photos (apologies for the poor quality) and details of the Tezro video editing system that I have set up at home. It's been a multi-year project the same as uunix editing system with a lot of learning on the way just to get it to work.
As there are a few photos, I will post in two halves showing the hardware side and then the system working in a separate post.

The core of the system is a quad 700Mhz Tezro system that was sold as an editing system by Discreet. Other than beefing up the RAM to 8Gb, the only changes internally are the boot drive (which is now a Samsung SSD in an ACARD ARS-2320S SATA to SCSI converter) and the addition of an LSI SAS/SATA controller which I have an external SAS disk array (Infortrend C2131) connected to.
Externally, the original IBM disk arrays were replaced due to cascading failures of the disk drives due to age and replaced with an SGI-branded T4600 trays which were salvaged from a decommissioned Altrix system. These have 4Gb fibre interfaces but I run them as 2Gb due to not having 4Gb PCI cards for the Tezro. The photo below shows one with 5x 1Tb WD Enterprise drives which are fast enough to keep the applications happy.

IMG_0237.jpg

The other common equipment with these systems is the ADA8824 ADAT unit for handling audio and the VBOB for video. Both of which are still required for the system to operate correctly. The Tezro and VBOB can be seen in the following photo.

IMG_0233.jpg

Rather than sourcing an analogue or digital VTR and handling tapes, I opted to go with more current generation equipment from Blackmagic Design (BMD) which is cost effective and adheres to the required Broadcast standards this type of system requires. I use the HperDeck Studio has my VTR and a dual 8" screen to monitor the output from the HyperDeck as well as the output from the VBOB. BMD use (in the equipment I have) 3Gbps SDI which is compatible for the VBOB and I can loop-through to other devices. In the photo below, you can see the VBOB output on the left-side screen (just colour bars on power up) and the HyperDeck output on the right-side screen. This comes in handy when you need to confirm you getting both input and output to the VBOB.

IMG_0235.jpg

Also visible in the photo (bottom right) is the SyncGen3 audio reference unit which I use as the 48Khz reference signal to keep the audio from drifting. Hardly visible on the bottom left is a BMD HDLink Pro which converts the SDI signal to HDMI which I use as the video preview screen on a 42" TV. Not visible in the photo I also have a BMD Tri-Sync generator which provides the video reference standard to the VBOB, Tezro and HyperDeck so the video doesn't lose sync and drift from the audio.
Most of my content comes via camera which I connect directly to the HDMI interface on the Hyperdeck and then copy down to the SSD. The HyperDeck then plays back the video stream in 1080P via the SDI interface and straight into the VBOB. As this generation of equipment embeds the audio into the video stream, I use a BMD SDI to SDI mini-converter to strip out a copy of the audio in 2 channel stereo which I then connect to the analogue inputs on the ADA8824.
Here is a photo of the camera with live input to the VBOB and HDLink via the HyperDeck.

IMG_0275.jpg

If I do need to get older video onto the system, I copy these video files to a PVR (in this case a Panasonic DMP-BD84) via USB drive. As this is a relatively new model, it plays back just about every video codec type. I connect this via HDMI to the HyperDeck and just play the video files. The HyperDeck converts it to the correct standard on the fly so I don't have to worry about file conversion to a type acceptable to the software.
The system is configured around 1080-24P which seems to work fine accept for one glitch I have yet to resolve.
In the second post I will show the applications in use.
Cheers

[sgi-enthusiast]

Well that worked well. Take 2 with the missing photos!
Hi,
I thought I would post some photos (apologies for the poor quality) and details of the Tezro video editing system that I have set up at home. It's been a multi-year project the same as uunix editing system with a lot of learning on the way just to get it to work.
As there are a few photos, I will post in two halves showing the hardware side and then the system working in a separate post.

The core of the system is a quad 700Mhz Tezro system that was sold as an editing system by Discreet. Other than beefing up the RAM to 8Gb, the only changes internally are the boot drive (which is now a Samsung SSD in an ACARD ARS-2320S SATA to SCSI converter) and the addition of an LSI SAS/SATA controller which I have an external SAS disk array (Infortrend C2131) connected to.
Externally, the original IBM disk arrays were replaced due to cascading failures of the disk drives due to age and replaced with an SGI-branded T4600 trays which were salvaged from a decommissioned Altrix system. These have 4Gb fibre interfaces but I run them as 2Gb due to not having 4Gb PCI cards for the Tezro. The photo below shows one with 5x 1Tb WD Enterprise drives which are fast enough to keep the applications happy.

The other common equipment with these systems is the ADA8824 ADAT unit for handling audio and the VBOB for video. Both of which are still required for the system to operate correctly. The Tezro and VBOB can be seen in the following photo.

Rather than sourcing an analogue or digital VTR and handling tapes, I opted to go with more current generation equipment from Blackmagic Design (BMD) which is cost effective and adheres to the required Broadcast standards this type of system requires. I use the HperDeck Studio has my VTR and a dual 8" screen to monitor the output from the HyperDeck as well as the output from the VBOB. BMD use (in the equipment I have) 3Gbps SDI which is compatible for the VBOB and I can loop-through to other devices. In the photo below, you can see the VBOB output on the left-side screen (just colour bars on power up) and the HyperDeck output on the right-side screen. This comes in handy when you need to confirm you getting both input and output to the VBOB.

Also visible in the photo (bottom right) is the SyncGen3 audio reference unit which I use as the 48Khz reference signal to keep the audio from drifting. Hardly visible on the bottom left is a BMD HDLink Pro which converts the SDI signal to HDMI which I use as the video preview screen on a 42" TV. Not visible in the photo I also have a BMD Tri-Sync generator which provides the video reference standard to the VBOB, Tezro and HyperDeck so the video doesn't lose sync and drift from the audio.
Most of my content comes via camera which I connect directly to the HDMI interface on the Hyperdeck and then copy down to the SSD. The HyperDeck then plays back the video stream in 1080P via the SDI interface and straight into the VBOB. As this generation of equipment embeds the audio into the video stream, I use a BMD SDI to SDI mini-converter to strip out a copy of the audio in 2 channel stereo which I then connect to the analogue inputs on the ADA8824.
Here is a photo of the camera with live input to the VBOB and HDLink via the HyperDeck.

f I do need to get older video onto the system, I copy these video files to a PVR (in this case a Panasonic DMP-BD84) via USB drive. As this is a relatively new model, it plays back just about every video codec type. I connect this via HDMI to the HyperDeck and just play the video files. The HyperDeck converts it to the correct standard on the fly so I don't have to worry about file conversion to a type acceptable to the software.
The system is configured around 1080-24P which seems to work fine accept for one glitch I have yet to resolve.
In the second post I will show the applications in use.
Cheers

[sgi-enthusiast]

So in the second post, here are some photos of the system actually working!
In the photo below you can see recorded video in smoke -

And in this photo of the HyperDeck, you can see the same output mirrored on the VBOB (left-side screen) with a cued video ready to play on the right-side screen -

Further showing the VTR capabilities of the HyperDeck, in this photo I have configured it as the default 24P deck in the config file options (before loading the app) which Flame then allows me to control the play, forward, reverse, stop, pause functions directly from the interface.

This last photo shows the video then paused in flame during a live capture.

Overall the point I suppose is that despite the age of the original hardware it still can be interfaced to more modern equipment and used for some great home videos!
Cheers

[uunix]

Excellent post sgi-enthusiast, really great setup.

I think I am certainly going to look at the blackmagic HyperDesck in the future.

iz zis ze same one that started as a “jenga” stack?

Indeed it is

[jan-jaap]

Thanks for the detailed story, I hope to have something similar one day.

These have 4Gb fibre interfaces but I run them as 2Gb due to not having 4Gb PCI cards for the Tezro.

Look for one or two QLA2462 cards to replace the dual 2Gbit FC cards found in most "Discreet" Tezros. They work unmodified in IRIX, though there was patch #7208 to the IP35 PROM (rev 6.211) to improve stability with the 4Gb FC cards, IIRC.